The inventor's local golf course's greens had an unusually high amount of crabgrass during the summer and fall of 2015 growing in all ten greens (nine-hole course and one practice putting green). He and his colleagues were preparing the course to host a “Ryder Cup” event with a friendly rival community in his region. His country club had been on shaky grounds financially and able to employ only one full-time grounds crewman/greens superintendent. The club was financially unable to buy pre-emergent crabgrass killer, and the greens superintendent didn't have time to try to pull the crabgrass. When the inventor was playing or practicing, he would try to use a divot fixer tool, twisting it then pulling upwards and grasping the central area of the crabgrass with his other thumb and index finger. After doing this twenty or thirty times, it was not unusual for a couple of tendons in each of his wrists to be sore for several days. September of 2015 was a particularly ideal time for crabgrass to proliferate on the golf course's putting greens. The inventor suddenly thought of the idea of a crabgrass removal drill bit. He placed a standard 4 cm long drill bit proximally in the same axis as the prong/tines on a typical golf divot fixing tool, gluing them together with steel reinforced epoxy. He would use this two-pronged instrument to puncture either side of an individual crabgrass root, thereby straddling the weed. He saw the potential for this, as there are thousands of golf courses across the world, and his wife has a flowerbed full of flowers and unwanted grasses, weeds, and vines.
Once crabgrass is established, chemicals are of no use. In the fall, after a heavy frost, crabgrass thighs become an ugly brown piece of grass that by the springtime months of March and April results in a barren area that is fertile ground for crabgrass seed. It is reported that one crabgrass plant can produce up to 150,000 seeds per year. Crabgrass does not grow back each year from the roots, but rather from their tiny seeds, which find their way down into the soil. Chemicals are expensive. The human body is prone to “overuse syndromes,” such as “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome,” when performing a particular movement on a repetitive basis.
The inventor searched local stores, Google, as well as eBay and Amazon.com, finding nothing on the market like his invention. He spoke with golf course superintendents and experienced players and found that there was nothing that they suggested other than pre-emergent chemicals and extracting the crabgrass, if so desired, with the stab of a knife or by the use of a golf ball divot fixing tool that is used to repair ball marks made when a ball lands on a golf putting green. Having played golf for 54 years, the inventor was well aware that there was nothing on the market like the weed removal drill bit that he has invented.
Chemical weed killers may kill more than the intended target. In particular, the grass on golf putting greens is cut at about 3/16 inch or less. The longer the grass grows, the deeper and longer its roots become. Conversely, when grass is cut very short, such as on a golf putting green, the grass root structure is very short. This makes the grass on golf course putting greens very delicate, thus easily injured by chemicals, adverse weather conditions, and heavy foot traffic.
Using weed killers in a vegetable garden can be potentially dangerous. The use of chemicals in flower gardens is also filled with potential disasters.
Manual weed removal can be painful on several parts of the body (fingers, wrists, hands, back, and knees) and mentally frustrating. It is labor-intensive and, therefore, can be costly.
Utilizing his tool, the inventor has been able to extract 101 pieces of crabgrass on a putting green in 5 minutes (20.2 crabgrass per minute) in one trial and 88 in another 5-minute trial (17.6 crabgrass per minute). It only takes him about 2 minutes to repair 101 holes created by a 5-minute extraction.
The amount of force needed to extract larger growths of crabgrass from the fringe of the golf putting green is significant. Removing crabgrass from the fairway is arduous, even for an athletic adult male. Removing Dallisgrass, crabgrass, and goosegrass can be tough work and tough on the body. Goosegrass in 2015 has become one of the top problem weeds for golf course superintendents. It is resistant to multiple chemicals, and, therefore, physical extraction is the method through which it can be controlled.
The use of existing hand weeding tools does not offer the advantages of the present invention, delineated above. The inventor has had overwhelmingly positive feedback, seeing smiles of amazement from golfers, golf pros, and golf course superintendents.
“Hole Saws” are saw-toothed cookie-cutters attached to a drill bit running down its center through the thin-walled cylinder used to cut holes of various diameters, often 0.5 inch up to 2 inches. They are dysfunctional in removing a weed for 2 reasons: removal of the core of earth/weed from within it's cylinder is time-consuming and cumbersome; and the entirety of the leaves of the weed, which may grow 1 to 1.5 inches in length outward horizontally across the surface of the putting green, need to be extracted. These leaves actually provide a mechanical advantage to the present “Weed EXtracTOR” in that they wrap snugly around the outer edges of the device's prongs. These leaves wind up being wrapped around prongs at the top of the core earth/tap root. As the operator pulls the “Weed EXtracTOR” out of the green, the leaves still attached to the tap root virtually ensure that the core of earth/tap root comes out of the green snugly attached to the prongs as opposed to pulling the “Weed EXtracTOR” out of the earthen golf course green yet leaving the entire weed in the green. Additionally the operator can grasp the top of this core with his or her thumb and index finger without his or her fingers being in dirt every time and can easily slide this core out of the “Weed EXtracTOR.”
Critical to the design of the “Weed EXtracTOR” is the plurality of edges and corners on the tool, most of which are 90 degree angles. This solves the problem of removing weeds and other vegetation that wrap themselves around the tool when it is operated. The simple design maintains pointed, rather than smooth edges, thus making is easy for the operator to remove weeds and other vegetation that have wrapped themselves around the tool by simply pulling them away from the tool, as the edges between every flat surface on the tool can cut through the entangled weeds or other vegetation.
A search of the USPTO patent database reveals several patents that tackle the problem of weeding in similar ways, but none of these patents describe a device that is as simple and easy to manufacture as this invention, while also utilizing a motorized means of operation. In addition, this invention can be used to repair the hole that is left after a weed or other plant is removed from the ground.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,847,227 (Myers), U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,744 (Ramirez), U.S. Pat. No. 4,641,712 (Cravotta), U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,466 (Ohlson), U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,496 (Smotherman), U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,010 (Smotherman), U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,118 (Cruz, Jr.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,767 (Smotherman), U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,923 (Visser), and U.S. Pat. No. 8,714,277 (Lindh) all disclose garden tools designed to bore holes or extract weeds or grasses through means of circular rotation, but each of the described tools are operated by manual means, and each of them, with the exception of U.S. Pat. No. 8,714,277 (Lindh), are of a more complicated design than that of the present invention and would be more difficult to manufacture than the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 3,554,293 (Aman and Rowell), U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,504 (Schneider), and U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,298 (Crady), disclose garden tools for weeding or soil-working and all utilize a hand-operated drill as their rotating means, but each of said tools are of a significantly more complicated design than that of the present invention and would be more difficult to manufacture than the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 6,736,217 (Brown) discloses a weed, root, and vine removing, and soil cultivating tool, that can be rotated by a manual means or through the use of a hand-held drill, but it is of a significantly more complicated design that that of the present invention and would be more difficult to manufacture than the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 8,813,862 (Yamaoka et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 8,820,426 (Lv) both disclose weeding devices, but both of these devices have integral mechanical means of rotation, are of a significantly more complicated design that that of the present invention, and would be more difficult to manufacture than the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,832 (Delvo) discloses a weed remover attachment that works through rotating means, but it is attached to an electric weed trimmer and would be more difficult to manufacture than the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 6,722,444 (McKill) discloses a tilling and weed removing device that works similarly to the present invention, but it is of a different design in that it utilizes prongs that are bent and does not utilize a body in order to attach said prongs to the shaft of the device. A number of rotary weeding tools use mechanical means to remove weeds and other vegetation that may become entangled in the tools, including U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,744 (Ramirez), U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,496 (Smotherman), U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,010 (Smotherman), U.S. Pat. No. 7,314,095 (Cobb), and U.S. Pat. No. 8,813,862 (Yamaoka et al.), thus recognizing the need to remove such weeds and other vegetation from rotary weeding tools. The problems encountered with the use of such mechanical means are multifold, including adding to the cost and difficulty to manufacture the tool, adding to the complexity of the tool and increasing the risk of breakage or failure, and making the tool more difficult to operate. The very design of the present invention, with its multiple hard edges, solves the problem of removing entangled weeds and other vegetation, as simply pulling on the weeds or other vegetation will cause them to be cut away by the present invention itself. Furthermore, none of the previously patenting patented weeding tools are of any use on a golf course putting green due to the fact that they would cause unacceptable damage to such a tediously maintained and closely mowed putting surface.